This selection is taken from three essays. The first "Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire" in which Greenberg attempts to create a new category of dialectical faith, defined as "moments faith" that recognises the power of evil in our world but still has the courage not to give up on the belief of faith, however fragile and insecure, is not absurd. The second selection is taken from Greenberg's deconstruction of the meaning of Jewish history in "The Third Great Cycle of Jewish History". In this he attempts to understand the post-Holocaust era as the "third era" in Jewish history in which the Holocaust has changed everything. The third section "Voluntary Covenant" carries forward the theme of a radical post-Holocaust third era in Jewish history.